Fires of War : March on Settlment 071
by Wintermut3
Summary: Settlment 071 looms in the distance, a horde of greenskins stand between the men of the Fourth Armoured and the captured city. Rated for language and violence.
1. Chapter 1

A trio of orks sit in a shallow pit, brutal faces illuminated by the glow of a crackling camp fire, they are roasting meat cut from a dead horse on a spit and drinking rotgut spirit from and old oil can. A gentle fall of snow blankets a bombed out stretch of rolling hills dotted here and there with the frozen and naked forms of trees.

The sky in the distance flashes yellow against boiling clouds in the night sky, the rolling thunder of far off artillery rumbling across the horizon. The trio grunt their approval of the day's fighting, the largest one letting out a roaring fart and the others laughing their guttural laughter and tearing chunks out of pieces of charred meat.

In the distance there is the sound of howling engines, another ork saunters over, a flowing topknot atop it's head flapping in the cold breeze that blew through their camp. It grunted something about approaching humans, brandishing a big bolt gun in the direction of the sound of engines and tank chains.

They barely notice the plop-plop-plop of mortars, the smallest of the group standing and craning it's muscular neck skywards, it's maw dropping wide open moments before the group of orks are smeared across the snow and ice packed hard beneath their feet.

In seconds the camp is in chaos, greenskins running to and fro looking for something to fight, others looking for shelter from the deadly rain of mortar shells. Taken by surprise, many are killed by the initial salvo, pounded into the snow that's melted to slush by the heat of HE shells raning down on them.

[+]

Joseph sat in behind the gunsight in the turret of a Leman Russ tank, holding onto the rack holding boxed belts of ammunition for the pintle mounted stubber to brace himself against the violent to and fro movement of the big machine as it rumbled through drifts of snow.

Despite the cold, the crew compartment was already stifling hot, filled with the stink of exhaust and the crew's faces were wet with sweat. The intercom crackled in his ears through the leather helmet he wore, the sleeves of his coveralls rolled up and he whispered a quiet prayer to the machine spirit as he watched the running figures of men swathed in greatcoats trotting across the field ahead of the tank disappear from view through his gunsight.

The horizon ahead flashed an angry sort of orange through bloiling clouds of toxic black, the mortar teams were working furiously to reduce the ork position to a smoking pile of wrecked vehicles and shattered bodies but Joseph wasn't entirely optimistic about it working.

"Shit, it looks like there won't be much left for us to kill by the time we get there." Piped Anatole from his place behind the steering rods, his voice shrill over the intercom as he kicked the machine up a gear.

"You'd be surprised." Came Wilfred from his spot by the breech of the tank's big gun, his coveralls unzipped and tied around his waist.

"Can it, the lot of you." The commander, Stein, spoke in a stern sort of tone, watching the bombardment through his periscope and keeping a lookout for potential targets. "They're just over that rise there, so keep your pricks up."

Just before they reached the rise, the mortar crews stopped their barrage, no more angry flashes and toxic clouds hung thick and black in the air above the greenskin camp. Anatole raced the engines, sending the tank lurching up over the rise and Joseph banged his elbow on the ammunition rack he was using to brace himself.

The camp was a scene of smoke, fire and destruction. One of the orks' troop carrying lorries lay upside down, on fire with it's cab blasted away. There were dead greenskins splayed out across the grey slush, ripped apart time and again until they were nothing more than lumps of barely recognizable meat.

The tank skidded down the other side of the rise almost uncontrollably, threatening to spin one way and then the next as Anatole fought for control and Wilfred banged his head on the breech of the gun, letting out a long howl and kicking Anatole firmly between the shoulders.

"What the fuck are you trying to kill me or something?" He roared, rubbing his forehead and checking to see if he's bleeding.

"Target at three o'clock!" The commander shouted through the intercom.

Joseph kicked the turret around on hydraulics, not bothering with the crank he used for fine adjustment, dropping the as far as it'd go before stomping on the firing pedal. The cannon barked, a shell hurtling into a pillbox built out of sandbags and scrap metal where there was a heavy bolter starting to spit shells at the infantry that was rushing across the rise behind the tanks.

There were three of them, one skidding across the rise and narrowly missing Stein and his crew, Joseph heard the commander spitting curses after the other machine as it careened into the upturned truck before grinding to a halt. There was no time to stop, Anatole gunning the engines and the Tank lurched forward again.

"Foxhole at one o'clock!" The commander called out. "Grind it shut, bury the sons of bitches!"

There were a pair of greenskins tossing grenades into the infantry that rushed into their position, diving into the cover their little fighting hole provided when they saw the tank looming over them and Anatole positioned one track over them, rocking the tank from side to side until he was satisfied that he'd crushed them to paste.

"Load HE, target at eleven o'clock!" Stein shouted, panic in his voice.

Joseph cranked the turret around, sighted an anti-tank gun hidden in the burned out shell of an old barn, it's barrel lining up with the big Leman Russ as it's green skinned crew readied themselves to fire. The largest of them pointing excitedly, shouting, Joseph knew it was them or him.

"Gun clear!" Wilfred shouted.

Joseph didn't hesitate for a second, stamping on the firing pedal and the tank lurched back on it's tracks, the barn exploding in a ball of fire as the shell hit it's mark and set off the boxes of ammunition the greenskins had on hand. The one that had been pointing and shouting was thrown away from the barn, it's body torn apart by the force of the explosion and a heap of skin and gore landed in the snow at the end of it's very short flight.

The guardsmen swept through the position, a junior officer in a tall cap at their head brandishing a sabre in one hand and a bolt pistol in the other, they slaughtered their way through the orks alongside the tanks as they rolled up the position in a rain of fire from their hull mounted heavy bolters.

[+]

It was over in minutes, felt like an eternity to Joseph and the tankers were all drenched in sweat, the fighting compartment of their machine now choked with soot and toxic fumes. Wilfred's forehead was now streaming blood, he'd hit his head again when they rolled over a dilapidated shack that an ork bolter crew had taken shelter in and he'd tied an oil soaked rag across his his head to keep the blood out of his eyes.

The tankers threw the hatch open and clambered out in the shadow of a big tree, it's branches stripped bare by the winter and it's trunk scarred with burns from lasguns. A group of guardsmen were going through the greenskin wounded they could find, running them through with bayonettes to make sure that they were indeed corpses.

"Fuck me but it's _cold_ out here." Wilfred said, sitting with his feet dangling off the edge of the turret, pulled his coveralls on and zipped them up.

There were four tanks when the assault began, only three had assembled near the big tree, a third lay burning not too far away. It's hatch was thrown open, two charred corpses hanging out with skeletal limbs entwined as if they'd been fighting one another to escape the howling inferno that had consumed them.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a cold day, but for once the skies were clear, a cool blue overhead and a bank of white cloud over the horizon. The tanks of third platoon were parked at a makeshift supply depot, a cluster of houses in the crook of a bend in a frozen creek. Joseph was sunning himself on an ammunition crate, watching reeds waving gently in the icy breeze.

He had a lump of crusty bread, washing it down with gulps of water with the tang of disinfectant to it from his canteen, a flock of birds taking flight from somewhere behind the reeds in the distance. Behind him, he could hear Anatole and Wilfred who had decided to take it upon themselves to name their tank.

Anatole had clambered up the front of the machine with a pot of black paint, bracing himself against the turret as he set to work with an old brush he'd found somewhere and using the big gun's barrel as his canvas.

"So why'd you decide on Erika?" Wilfred asked, puffing on an lho stick.

"I knew a girl called Erika when I was with 3rd Regiment." Anatole started, his tounge sticking out from the corner of his mouth. "A real nice piece of cunt, she was on the Colonel's staff."

"What'd she look like?" Wilfred asked, licking his lips with a lustful sparkle in his eyes.

"Long blonde hair, skin like milk and rosy cheeks." Anatole started, biting his lip as he rounded off the top of his uppercase R. "Legs that went on and on, looked to be a part of the smart set but she'd have gotten a job at the dirtiest cathouse in all the Imperium for how she'd fuck you if you played your cards right."

Wilfred's face cracked open with a broad grin, leaning against the hull of the tank and sinking down to the ground, smoke hung limp at the corner of his mouth. He sighed heavily, a far away look on his face all of a sudden, like he'd his own sweetheart that he missed somewhere far away.

"What I wouldn't do for a little piece of cunt right now." He said after a very long time.

"What any of us would do." Anatole pointed out. "But you're not likely to find any way out here, not for frontline soldiers like us at least."

"What's all this I hear about skirt?" Comes Corporal Weiss, the commander of 03, his sidecap at a jaunty angle over one eye and a lascarbine tucked under his arm. "I hear tell that there's a mobile whore box attached to B company, strictly hush hush, you see."

"Whores." Wilfred muses dreamily.

"Well, why don't we see for ourselves the next opportunity we get?" Anatole asks, putting the finishing touches on his work. He drops down from the tank and takes a step back to admire it, sucking his tounge thoughtfully and deciding that it's acceptable. "We're meant to meet our erstwhile comrades when we liberate Settlment 071, it'd do us some good to get out and see the sights while we're there, I think."

"Whores!" Wilfred is on his feet in a flash, grinning from ear to ear.

They were interrupted by a flurry of bolter shells stiching their way up the road beside them, sending them hurtling for cover as all hell broke loose. Joseph was flat on his belly in an instant, clutching his lascarbine as a gutteral howl rang out in the cold, still morning air.

"Greenskins, they're coming up from the creek!" A soldier shouted, pointing towards the reeds by the creek where a hulking ork came charging, his weapon spitting steel and fire.

The soldier was about to shout something else, swinging his lasgun up to fire as half of his face was blown away, throwing him to the ground. There was no time to be concerned about him, however, more greenskins coming rushing into the little makeshift depot.

Many more that are much smaller materialized seemingly out of nowhere, shrieking little things with crude pistols and vicious looking knives that were rusted and not altogether out of place in a kitchen. Three of them dragged a guardsman screaming into a house, his blood curdling cries heard by all and a greenskin with a bundle of grenades in his hand roared his approval.

Joseph took aim at one of the beasts who was holding a brutal axe in one hand and a pistol in the other, rounds sizzling into it's face and neck as it staggered and eventually collapsed in a heap. A round cracked overhead and Joseph ducked instinctively, spotting a guardsman with one of the little ones on his chest.

It was stabbing him in the face as the man struggled in vain to get away, the life going out of him as Joseph puts a round into the little thing's back, searing it's flesh and cooking it's spinal fluid. No time for emotion, no time for anything but killing, he sprinted across to the tank where Anatole's paint pot had spilled across the snowy ground.

"For the Emperor!" Wilfred shouts, loosing a hail of fire from his lascarbine in the direction of the creek and Anatole follows it up with a hand grenade.

Joseph clambered up the side of the tank, leaping through the open turret hatch and seizing the pintle mounted heavy stubber. He tore open the reciever, slamming the ammunition belt stowed in a box bolted to the gun's mount into place and slamming the reciever shut again.

As he cocks the big gun, a round pings off of the turret in front of him, he can almost feel the bullet ricochet past him as he swings the gun around on the cluster of houses where the orks are slaughtering those inside. One of the buildings was a makeshift hospital, it's rooms filled with rows of cots and wounded soldiers. Some were still screaming and others had dragged themselves out into the street before being cut down.

"We have got the Emperor's blessing and they have not." Joseph whispered as he squeezed the trigger, the big stubber bucking in his grasp as it spat shells into the body of a big greenskin that broke cover to fire it's bolter at an Imperial Guardsman hiding behind a staff car.

The beast's jaw was blown away from it's head by the first hit, it's arm nearly severed by the second and a third blasted a fist sized hole in it's chest before it slumped dead in a pool of it's own blood. Joseph's stubber barked off another burst through the walls of a house where he'd seen a group of the little greenskins go.

They came running out with their arms flailing over their heads and then disappeared in a red mist as Joseph cut them to pieces, his teeth gritted and he saw Anatole and Wilfred moving up, their heads down low and firing from the hip. One of the houses exploded, it's roof blasted apart but the walls stayed standing and a grinning ork came out covered head to toe in soot, still fighting.

It was over almost as suddenly as it had begun, leaving heaps of broken corpses behind and Joseph slumped over the stubber, breathing hard and his heart still racing from the unexpected rush of adrenaline. The exploded house had set fire to the house beside it and the staff car had been wrecked.

A brief interlude in their sunny day behind the frontline.


	3. Chapter 3

The shadow of Settlment 071 loomed threateningly on the horizon, barely visible for the snow and gloom, seemingly an eternity away for the horde of greenskins that had staked it out as their territory and marched out of it to fight the Imperials. Joseph sat behind his gunsight, watching Wilfred throwing dice on the floor of the turret.

They were moving to another section of the front for an offensive, part of a convoy that snaked it's way across a frozen steppe, plowing through drifts of snow and stopping from time to time at a checkpoint manned by Arbites in long coats with shotguns held across their chests. The procession of vehicles was made up of two tank platoons and a company of infantry riding in covered lorries.

"Alot of fresh faces in this lot." Stein said, Joseph half hearing him standing out of his cupola and half hearing his voice crackling through the intercom.

"More corpses for the corpse pile." Anatole mused from his seat behind Erika's control rods.

Joseph had seen them mounting up, mostly conscripts from another system, fleshy faces that belonged to boys but they can't have been much younger than he was himself. Their equipment new, all regimentally packed away in it's place and their uniform fatigues neatly pressed.

His own fatigues were dirty with oil and grease, zipped up beneath his black coveralls and he was glad for the heat inside of the tank in the biting cold of winter. In the short time he'd been with the guard he'd come to realise that this was his lot in life and he wondered if they would come to the same conclusion, more likely they'd be smashed to paste across the wintery ground on the road to Settlment 071.

"Wouldn't much like to be caught up with that lot." Stein said, slumping back into his seat and fishing his grubby old tobacco pouch out of his fatigues.

"I was infantry once, you know." Anatole piped up as Stein carefully rolled himself a cigarette out of his tawny coloured smoking weed. "Cunt of a job, if I do say so myself."

Wilfred smiled, he'd rolled a seven and he was pleased with himself, swiping the dice up in one deft move and tucking them away in his pocket. He then produced a flask of brandy, the smell permeated the inside of the tank when he unscrewed the cap and took a swig.

"Always running one way or another, nobody gives enough of a fuck to ask if you'd like to take a moment to sit down and rest. I remember I once walked four days to the front only to recieve a right thrashing and spend the next two weeks walking back." He continued, eyes lazily watching the tail end of the tank ahead of them through his open hatch. "And when we got there, what do you know, they told us to turn around and march back up there and re-take the ground we'd just lost."

"I'd say your commander would have gotten a dressing down for that." Wilfred spat, passing his canteen up to Joseph, who took a big gulp and nearly coughed.

"A dressing down?" Anatole laughed, as if he'd made a particularly funny joke. "He and his entire command squad got the Emperor's benediction on the end of a bolter shell."

Joseph passed the canteen back to Wilfred and he passed it on to Anatole, Stein wasn't one for drinking the rotgut sort of brandy that Wilfred liked. They sat in silence, contemplating Anatole's dead commander, the fate of any who a commissar might find wanting.

"Absolute cunt of a job sounds about right." Wilfred said, finally.


	4. Chapter 4

They waited in the woods behind a grassy slope, hatches buttoned up as a thunderous barrage shook the ground beneath their tracks, sweating despite the cold, their machine already stifling hot and filled with the reek of exhaust fumes. Joseph checked over his gun sight again, wiping the eyepiece with his thumb and whispering a prayer to the Emperor.

Anatole raced the engine, hands white knuckle tight on the control rods and he had the sleeves on his coveralls rolled up below his elbows. Wilfred sat on the floor of the turret, cross legged with an HE round cradled in his lap and Stein listened intently for the order to attack over his radio, toying with his aquila medallion by rubbing it between his middle finger and thumb.

"I'd say it's about to kick off soon." Anatole said, letting the motor idle.

Through the gunsight, Joseph could see that that the sky beyond the hill that concealed them from the enemy burned, an angry red showing through toxic black. He held his breath, heard the barrage peter out and the order came down through the radio, a distant and unfamilliar voice issuing it.

"Attack, for the Emperor, glory to the first unit to be wiped off the map!" An officer with stars in his eyes, Joseph thought as the tank lurched violently and Anatole kicked it into gear.

The mass of tanks swarmed out from behind the hill, diving into a muddy stretch of bombed out steppe, toxic smoke hung over the field of battle as the greenskin lines came alive. Guardsmen surged forwards, slipping and sliding across the muddy battlefield only to be cut to pieces by the ork guns.

"Target one o'clock!" Stein cried out. "Halt, fire!" It was almost instantaneous, Anatole bringing the machine to a halt as Joseph swung the turret around, spotted a dug in heavy bolter and smashed the position to pieces. "Good hit, load HE, forwards!"

The hull mounted heavy bolter spat death, a big greenskin leading it's troops out of a trench, a bundle of hand grenades in it's hands and it's face disappeared in a pink mist before Erika's tracks ground the orks into the mud. Anatole drove over another trench, greenskins hammering away at the approaching Imperials from inside it and he rocked the tank from side to side, burying them in mud.

"Target, twelve o'clock!" Panic in Stein's voice, cried out just as Joseph spotted it.

A tank, half buried in snow, it's cannon pointed straight at Erika. Joseph swore, stamped on the firing pedal before Anatole could stop and the greenskin tank fired too. Wilfred was sent sprawling across the floor of the turret, Anatole was thrown from his seat and Joseph was thrown against the bulkhead behind him.

"Shit, they mean business!" Anatole cried out, crunching down a gear and opening up the throttle.

"Load AT, Anatole what the hell do you think you're doing?" Stein cried out, wiping blood away from his face.

The HE round had hit the enemy tank, blasted away the snow that buried it to reveal a ramshacke thing painted orange. Wilfred's face was black with soot and he loaded an AT round, shouted that the gun was clear and he held on for dear life as Erika lurched down into a shell hole and ground her way back up it.

"Stop for fuck's sake, you'll hit them!" Stein cried out at Anatole.

Joseph watched the enemy tank through his gunsight, lined it up with the fine sighting wheel as best he could, the ork machine belched fire and the round hurtled closely overhead. Joseph stamped on the firing pedal, the machine lurching backward as it hurtled forwards and this time it was a good hit.

The round punched a hole in the ramshacke tank's turret, the gun being torn away by a firey explosion, burning figures running circles in the snow. Anatole slewed the tank off to one side of the flaming wreck and ground some ork footsoldiers into paste.

"For the Emperor!" He cried, idiotically.

All around them the front was a quagmire of mud and fire, an Imperial tank hurtled past them, flames licking from it's hatches and smoke pouring from it's engines. The commander hung lifelessly from his cupola, slowly turning black in the flames that surrounded him. The machine ran itself up a tree, tracks grinding forward and the reserve ammunition went off.

"Target three o'clock, load AT!" Stein shouted, Anatole swinging the tank around violently. A round clanged off of the hull beside Joseph's head, he sighted a lone walker, looked like a promethium tank on legs but was making short work of a platoon of guardsmen with it's flame thrower.

"Gun clear!" Wilfred shouted.

"Fire!" And Joseph stepped on the firing pedal again, his lungs burning and the inside of the tank was choked with fumes, ugly grey smoke that burned in his nose and eyes.

The greenskin walker staggered to one side, torn open by the blast and one of it's arms had been blown away. The guardsmen threw grenades at it and surged forwards, only to be cut to ribbons as a group of greenskins opened up on them with their big guns.

Erika's hull mounted gun chattered, the orks were peppered with exploding rounds that pounded flesh and bone to bloody paste in the muddy snow. More guardsmen ran over the dead greenskins, disappeared behind the orange flash of an explosion, Joseph couldn't tell where it came from.

By now Wilfred had stripped down to the waist, fat droplets of sweat tracing lines in the soot on his back. Anatole's coveralls were soaked with hot oil from a burst oil line, Joseph touched the back of his head and his hand came away covered in blood. But they ground on through the ork lines, lost almost half of their number to the sucking mud and to enemy fire.


End file.
